Swiss press react
Blatter ‘dethroned’ and hit by reality

This content was published on October 9, 2015 10:27 AMOct 9, 2015 - 10:27

An empty 'throne': the Swiss media see Blatter's reign as finally over

(Keystone)

The media in Sepp Blatter’s homeland believe that the 79-year-old’s reign at the world football governing body FIFA may finally be coming to an end following his suspension, and that FIFA has big lessons to learn from the saga.

Blatter’s name was all over Swiss newspapers after he was suspended from FIFA for 90 days on Thursday, as Swiss authorities investigate him amid a widening corruption scandal. The FIFA ethics committee also handed a 90-day suspension to Blatter's possible successor, UEFA chief Michel Platini, and to FIFA's secretary general, Jerome Valcke, who had already been put on leave.

Blatter’s lawyer announced early on Friday morning that Blatter would be appealing the decision. FIFA announced on Friday night that its executive meeting would hold an emergency session on October 20 to discuss whether to postpone the presidential election.

The election to succeed Blatter is now set for February 26. A crisis meeting of all 54 members of UEFA is scheduled for next week at its Swiss headquarters in Nyon.

The German-language newspaper’s editor-in-chief said that Blatter’s arrogance had made him unpopular even in the Swiss media and had overshadowed “the patriotic pride” of having a countryman at the top of football.

“The man from the Valais is practiced at bouncing back in his job, but now the burden is too heavy even for his shoulders. Whether in the end he faces any kind of criminal charge is less important than the lessons that world football's governing body has learned from this case: corruption, favoritism and personality cults have become outdated in democratic countries – and this is also the case for a sports association with a worldwide reach,” the Tages-Anzeiger observed.

‘Broken’ system

The German-language Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)external link said that the “broken” FIFA system was now evident for everyone to see. It called the saga “film-like” and said it looked like Blatter was taking his potential successor, Platini, with him in his downfall.

The level of FIFA’s dysfunction is evidenced by the fact that “very dubious” people were meant to keep it running, the NZZ said, observing that “the call to clean up FIFA is becoming louder”.

But the Zurich-based paper doubted whether such a cleanup would be possible as it needed goodwill from the FIFA executive committee and a three-quarters majority from its congress, where many members consider their leader’s failings a “harmless crime”.

The Blick tabloidexternal link ran the headline “Blatter is banned from FIFA’s buildings”. He’ll now be going for walks in his home region, it said, quoting a close advisor. He won’t be resigning, according to the newspaper, just spending 90 days on the sidelines, which happens to even the “best players”. “The question remains, will Blatter ever return to the field?” the Blick wondered.

FIFA’s balloon

Platini won’t be FIFA’s saviour because even if he “didn’t have too much to reproach himself with” he has been “too accommodating about what has been happening at FIFA”.

A deep clean is needed, one that not only changes the men in charge, but the whole system, according to Le Temps.

FIFA also needs to relearn modesty, the paper reckoned.

“It’s not football – it doesn’t organise matches, train players. It doesn’t even have the power, alone, to change the rules. Under the reign of Sepp Blatter, who dreamed of the Nobel Peace Prize, this body only really had the sole task of attributing the World Cup every four years. But it thought of itself as the centre of the world. It is time to burst this balloon."

swissinfo.ch

Neuer Inhalt

Horizontal Line

subscription form

Form for signing up for free newsletter.

Sign up for our free newsletters and get the top stories delivered to your inbox.

WEF 2018

There are 6 comments on this article.

Copyright

All rights reserved. The content of the website by swissinfo.ch is copyrighted. It is intended for private use only. Any other use of the website content beyond the use stipulated above, particularly the distribution, modification, transmission, storage and copying requires prior written consent of swissinfo.ch. Should you be interested in any such use of the website content, please contact us via contact@swissinfo.ch.

As regards the use for private purposes, it is only permitted to use a hyperlink to specific content, and to place it on your own website or a website of third parties. The swissinfo.ch website content may only be embedded in an ad-free environment without any modifications. Specifically applying to all software, folders, data and their content provided for download by the swissinfo.ch website, a basic, non-exclusive and non-transferable license is granted that is restricted to the one-time downloading and saving of said data on private devices. All other rights remain the property of swissinfo.ch. In particular, any sale or commercial use of these data is prohibited.